Australian woman Erin Patterson was found guilty on Monday of murdering three of her estranged husband’s relatives by deliberately serving them poisonous mushrooms for lunch.
The jury within the Supreme Court trial in Victoria state returned the decision after six days of deliberations, following a nine-week trial. Patterson faces life in prison and will likely be sentenced at a later date.
Patterson, 50, showed no emotion but blinked rapidly because the verdicts were read while she sat between two prison officers.
Three of Patterson’s 4 lunch guests — her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, each 70, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66 — died within the hospital after eating the poisonous meal at her home in the agricultural town of Leongartha on July 29, 2023.
Patterson was also found guilty of attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband, who survived the meal.
Patterson served individual meals of beef Wellington pastries containing death cap mushrooms, mashed potatoes and green beans.
Patterson had pleaded not guilty to the 4 charges, arguing the deaths were accidental.
The jury was required to make a decision whether Patterson knew the lunch contained death cap mushrooms and if she intended for her guests to die. It wasn’t disputed that Patterson served the mushrooms or that the meat Wellington pastries killed her guests.
The guilty verdicts, which were required to be unanimous, indicated that jurors rejected Patterson’s defence that the presence of the poisonous mushrooms within the meal was a terrible accident, brought on by the mistaken inclusion of foraged mushrooms that she didn’t know were death caps.
Prosecutors didn’t offer a motive for the killings, but in the course of the trial highlighted strained relations between Patterson and her estranged husband and frustration that she had felt about his parents previously.
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The case focused on whether Patterson planned the murders or if she unintentionally killed three people, including her children’s only surviving grandparents.
Her lawyers claimed she had no reason to commit the murders as she had recently moved right into a recent home, was financially comfortable and had sole custody of her children. Additionally they said that she was as a result of begin studying for a level in nursing and midwifery.
But prosecutors suggested Patterson had two faces — the lady who publicly appeared to have relationship along with her parents-in-law, while her true feelings about them were kept hidden.
Her relationship along with her estranged husband, Simon Patterson, who was invited to the fatal lunch but didn’t attend, deteriorated within the 12 months before the deaths, the prosecution said.
The day after the meal, all 4 of Patterson’s guests were hospitalized with poisoning from death cap mushrooms, also referred to as amanita phalloides, that were added to the meat and pastry dish. Ian Wilkinson survived after a liver transplant.
“I had felt for some months that my relationship with the broader Patterson family, and particularly Don and Gail, perhaps had a bit more distance or space put between us,” Patterson previously said in the course of the trial. “We saw one another less.”
Wilkinson previously told the courtroom that Patterson had plated “the entire food” and appeared “reluctant” for her lunch guests to enter her pantry.
“Every person had a person serve, it was very very similar to a pasty,” Wilkinson said. “It was a pastry case and after we cut into it, there was steak and mushrooms.”
He said all of them ate from 4 grey plates and Patterson ate from an “orangey tan” plate.
“Erin picked up the odd plate and carried it to the table. She took it to her place on the table,” he told the court.
Wilkinson also said his wife told him the following day that she “noticed the difference in colors” of the plates.
He said he and his wife “ate all the meal,” while Don ate his meal and half of the meat Wellington that Gail didn’t finish.
“There was speak about husbands helping their wives out,” he said.
Justice Christopher Beale previously told jurors that prosecutors had dropped separate charges against Patterson alleging she had also attempted to murder her estranged husband with the poisonous mushrooms.
Death cap mushrooms are present in a lot of B.C.’s forests but may be present in city environments related to many species of imported trees. In accordance with the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, the mushrooms have been spotted on Vancouver Island and within the Lower Mainland.
Death cap mushrooms look much like common puffball mushrooms, but should never be eaten. In case you suspect you could have consumed a death cap mushroom, it’s best to seek emergency medical care immediately.
Symptoms of being poisoned by a death cap mushroom include low blood pressure, nausea and vomiting.
—With files from Global News’ Michelle Butterfield and The Associated Press
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